Destigmatizing Sex Work: Strippers
For Destigmatizing Sex Work: Introduction please click this link:
Introduction
Our parents, our teachers, our society want us to enter a career field we love and become a responsible, tax paying citizen. Families especially want to see their children do succeed in life and never be ashamed of who we are. Unless we're a sex worker then we're bad and deserve anything and everything bad that happens to us.
I personally don't think it's fair that sex workers have to be put on the defensive whenever they're casually asked, "So, what do you do for a living?" I'll overlook the lame attempt at formenting a conversation with that cliché one-liner. Even for sex workers who aren't ashamed of their jobs this air of tension that inevitably arises when asked this question in mixed company threatens to choke the life out of all those involved.
Next to prostitutes, strippers seem to receive the worse treatment from those outside the industry. Though the talent has become popular and chic in the past few years it's still not considered 'real work'. Because apparently, all those aforementioned well wishes excluded, 'real work' still consists of hating to get up every morning to go to the job you slave away at all day and bitch about at the bar at night. Stripping is a real job just like pushing around paper, though a stripper will make more money (especially if s/he is good) than the paper-pusher. The latter is automatically seen as better and more acceptable than the former simply because of their chosen line of work.
For female strippers this job/career can be very lucrative. They can bring in more money a year than their counterparts in the corporate sector. Many women have put their children through school based on their earnings from stripping. Having a good business mind can put women in a position to go onto other projects such as starting their own businesses or going back to school and paying without having to worry about applying for loans. Just like prostitution, stripping isn't a monolith. Though you're much less likely to find women forced into stripping, some may feel trapped there. Others only use it as a means to an end (paying off school debts) and still others make it a career and absolutely love what they do. The latter two seem to be more the norm.
But sometimes moving on from stripping can produce problems. Future employers may scoff at an applicant who listed stripping as a previous job. Just from the information on the paper, they've disqualified them based on negative and often untrue stereotypes despite the person's qualifications. For those who only used stripping as a means to an end can find themselves trapped in a job they don't want to work.
People who find this line of work disgusting would point to that as a reason why it shouldn't exist. Even if you love your job, there are times when you can just hate it. Or parts of it you can't stand. Just like any other job, which is exactly my point. Stripping shouldn't be seen as different from any other job. Yes, some clubs can be cesspools with asshole managers who like to take advantage of their position. We've all heard those stories but it's hardly a problem unique to stripping (as some anti-sex work advocates who try to conflate typical on-the-job problems as problems caused by the 'vice' in question). There isn't one industry in the world that is immune to that. However, this can be avoided by conducting investigations on the club in mind. Kiko Wu has more on that here. The only way problems (like safety, sexual harassment, assault, etc.) can be touted as industry specific is if there is NEVER any record of the same incidents happening to women in other fields. Obviously such claims will never be backed up.
Quite a few, women especially, find the line of work empowering. Alysabeth the feminist stripper has several pieces covering this topic and written so eloquently, I'll let her do the speaking since I agree with everything she said in them: Why Would A Woman Want To Be a Stripper? and Sex Work Isn't a Euphemism: Don't Patronize.
Stripping takes not only a great deal of courage but talent as well. No, a stripper doesn't have to be a candidate for Joffery Ballet of Chicago or Alvin Ailey (NYC) to make a lot of money. Quite a few of them just gyrate. What all strippers need to have is allure. Although dance training can make a difference as long as one knows how much and what to incorporate and what to leave behind. A few Fosse moves might do, but Twyla? Maybe not. Also, gymnastic talent helps to create some awesome moves on the pole, something strippers with not-so-good flipping prowess would steer clear of. A healthy diet must be followed as well as an exercise program to stay toned and fit.
I know many think stripping and strippers are all bad and evil and should be wiped off the face of the Earth. Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion. However, this should not prevent a mother from taking care of her child, a woman from seeking protection from those who don't know how to respect boundaries, a stripper from signing a lease for an apartment. But people who don't like stripping or strippers feel as though this is just treatment and it's not. They are human beings with civil rights like everyone else and whenever those rights are violated they deserve justice under the law.
"It's so degrading!" is another cry from anti-sex work activists. That all depends on who's doing the defining. I worked for a lingerie company which shall go unnamed in this post as well as for a British-based, formerly woman-operated body care company based on very Green values. Both of them treated me like a third-world sweatshop worker and gave me no respect. Working for those stores was absolutely degrading, but since I kept my clothes on, somehow that's better than a stripper who loves her (or his) job. Women suffer more from the double standard that revolves around sex work. It is more acceptable for a man to seek such services but completely unacceptable for a woman to offer the services by her free will.
Posted at 09:42 pm by
La_Libertine
